Writing about writing

How about swapping some free publicity?

I’m still working up this (unoriginal) idea, but it would be good to get some feedback so I can see if it’s worth pursuing. If you have the time to read to the end of this post, there might be some free publicity in it for you.

Free publicity on offer

Getting free publicity for our books is tough. You don’t want to overdo your self-publicity on Facebook pages as that just puts people off, but if someone else talks about your book, it’s a different matter.

It strikes me, as writers, we probably have blogs about our writing. I do. Actually, I have two blogs. So, I’m thinking about offering a blog post every now and then for a fellow self- or indie-published author to write something about their work. I’ll put it up on my blog, and it will get the same mentions on FB, and my Twitter pages as my own would do, and the blog post would also link to where it’s for sale on Amazon. A bit of free publicity for you, some content for me, and vice versa. A publicity swap, in effect. But there would have to be a reciprocal understanding and certain conditions.

My conditions

I wouldn’t just post any old book. It would have to be something of interest to my readers and me. If one of your books matches the genre/niche of one of mine, you can send me a post about your book to go on my blog. I’d send you the same about a ‘matching’ book of mine for your blog. We’d trust each other to reciprocate and share the blog post on FB etc. Kind of, “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours” – but in public. I think you’ve got the idea.

So, if you’re still interested, here are my criteria for acceptance:

The book must be for sale on Amazon.

It must fit with the type of books that I write and like (there is a list below) as that’s what my readers will be interested in.

You write the blog post to go on my blog (in English), and I post it when I can – if I get lots of replies to this it may take a while to get through them all.

You can write what you want but it should be more about the writing of the book, the inspiration, the journey of creating the piece, but it can also have a paragraph of ‘blurb’, suitable quotes from happy readers, a short logline, etc. And it must be honest. This is not an exercise in putting out spam, there has to be some meat to the post. (Note the pun?)

The post must be well written and be between 500 and 1,000 words.

I’ll get the cover image from Amazon, and the link.

I’ll have the right to edit the post (no naughty words etc.), and you can do the same to mine.

One book per person, at least to start with. Don’t send me three and ask me to choose, you decide which of your titles you think would best fit.

Is your book suitable?

To make sure your book fits with what I like to write and blog about, you can check out my titles on my Amazon Author’s page but here’s a quick list of what I’m looking for:

Books about or set in Greece – this is for my island blog, www.symidream.com (voted one of the top 25 island blogs on the net) Previous guests posters there have included Anne Zouroudi (Bloomsbury’s ‘Greek Detective’ series) but I am looking for self- or indie-published authors. ‘Girl Gone Greek‘, by Rebecca A Hall, has featured on this blog in the past, for example.

For this blog, James Collins Author, these kinds of books:

Amusing travel tales – Three of my titles are collections of stories concerned with moving to and living in Greece, but yours can be about anywhere. Think Bill Bryson style books.

Books with gay characters – but not pure erotica! All but one of my novels features positive gay characters, but there’s very little erotica in them (apart from ‘Other People’s Dreams‘ my first one, written a long time ago which also has the advantage of being partly set in Greece). My new mystery/thriller (coming out in May), ‘The Saddling’, has an underscore of ‘coming out’, there are some homoerotic moments, but they are very understated. My horror novel, ‘Lonely House’ has a very ambiguous relationship between the two main characters, I like to leave it to the reader to decide if Pete and Drover’s relationship is a ‘bromance’ or something deeper. So, gay novels would be welcome, but I’m not looking for Mills & Boon style, pure gay romance with a bit of nookie in them.

Satire – well-written comedies. Check out the details of ‘Remotely‘, my gay/straight body-swap satire that came out last year. Or ‘You Wish’ which is a mad comedy with gay characters (and straight) that was written as a bit of fun, and written a long time ago before I worked with a professional editor.

Thrillers & Horror – yes, but as there are so many of these I’m going to narrow it down again to my three main categories. I’ll consider thrillers and horror stories only if there is a positive gay character, or it’s set in Greece, or it’s also a comedy (well, you never know, and I do like to mix genres).

I’m not looking for fantasy, science fiction, children’s books, academic books, straight romance, erotica… If in doubt, take the time to check my Amazon Author’s page and see if what you have will match up with what I’ve written. If you’re still in doubt, send me the link to the book on Amazon, or a decent, short synopsis, and I’ll decide.

What now?

If you are interested in doing a blog post swap, send me an email that includes:

‘Blog post swap’ in the title (so I see it in my Mailwasher and make sure it’s not marked as spam).

Give me the title and link to its Amazon page and say which of the above criteria it fits into. (The book must be in English.)

A link to your blog so I can see that you have one.

Obviously, ask any questions you may have about this idea.

I’ll then get back to you as soon as possible to say if I’d like to do a swap with you or not.

Don’t take time writing the post until we’ve made contact with each other, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.

Note: there’s no money involved here, but I’ll affiliate link to your book, and you can do the same to mine. You may make a sale or several (I can’t guarantee it) and so might I when you put up my reciprocal blog post, something you promise to do and which I will trust you to do if I select your book.